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Money can’t buy you the best Spanish course–it’s free. And it’s called Complete Spanish, the Thinking Method by Mihalis Eleftheriou.

What is it?

A well-thought out collection of 90 audio lessons (each about 10-15 minutes long) for Spanish learners, which start from the absolute beginning and cover almost every minute detail there is to the language.

Who it is for?

Perfect for learners who are just starting out or haven’t yet

Also perfect for students at any level having a break down over their current teacher or method of study

How it works?

Firstly, you will learn Spanish in a very different order than you are used to (if you’ve not yet begun learning, this is the best thing you can lay your hands on).

Most Spanish (or any language) learning theories roots for “basic” words that every learner must memorize in the beginning of their course, so they can put together “helpful” sentences like “the blue boy has a red mouth” Language Transfer doesn’t believe in this. Instead, it teaches you the easiest-to-grasp concepts first: by lesson 4 or 5, you will learn how to think thousands of words and form complete sentences with them, long before you ever learn how to say “mouth.”

For example, we don’t learn the Spanish word for “yes” until lesson 9, but around the same time we learn how to make sentences such as “I am not trying to justify myself, but I want to explain something to you.” Strange, right? And no memorization or rote technique involved here.

I’ve completed the course in an honest manner, and if I recall correctly it didn’t teach me how to say “cat,” or “apple” or “mouth*” for that matter–but seriously who needs that. Alright, we do, but a simple Google search or dictionary does that for you. Besides, imagine getting lost in Latina Land, after years of conventional/rote study, unable to recall anything besides “This is the pen of my aunt” and “Carlos has fallen from the tree.”

In the lessons, Mihalis teaches to a real student who is learning the material for the first time. If you’re familiar with the Michel Thomas courses, you can draw the similarities. What I like about this is you follow along with her at a natural pace, so you feel like it is a real experience, not a rehearsed one.

The Process

Though no one on the other end can keep a tab on what you are doing, Language Transfer is a course that requires your active participation. So you can’t listen to it while doing push-ups or taking a walk or driving the car; you have to sit or even lie down (at your own discretion; his voice can get sleep-inducing sometimes), focused on learning Spanish. This is because you are expected to take the role of the student in the lessons, responding to his questions and practicing along. If you just listen to the lessons and don’t participate, in Mihalis’ words, you will learn “about Spanish” but not how to speak Spanish. After Mihalis asks a question of the student, there will be a brief pause before she answers, and this is where you are supposed to pause the audio lesson and take your time to come up with your own answer before continuing. (if you’re sincerely participating though, hitting the pause is not even necessary as she goes at a fairly natural pace.)

What you get from it

Complete Spanish–every grammar rule and language bend there is, including the exceptions and less familiar ones .

Ability to form the most difficult sentences

Ability to speak using the correct pronunciation, dialect, etc. so you don’t sound like a “gringo.”

Thorough understanding of the language mechanics

Perfect for students at all levels: from total beginners to intermediate learners. It’s never too late to change your ways!

What you have to get for yourself

Vocabulary–besides the language transfer words and the ones used in the course. Yeah, you can’t ditch the dictionary. Not yet; not ever. You may be able to form any number of complex, weirdly difficult sentences with impeccable grammar and precise pronunciation, but how awkward would it be if you stall because you don’t know or can’t recall the “Spanish word” for something? Super awkward! Falling short on vocabulary will render all that learning useless.

Practice-Practicing what you learn is important if you don’t want the previous lessons getting foggy in your brain as you proceed further up.

My take

What’s more, the course pushes you to understand how to analyze language, how to think about it, how to get interested in it. . . One thing you’ll realize is nothing is as difficult as it’s made out to be once you start thinking about it.

It doesn’t unnecessarily spoon-feed you though. So if you want to know how to say “apple” you use that dictionary, and if you want to say “mouth” or something listen to anything from the latin-pop charts!

Learning through memorization, which is how Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, and other courses teach you, is slow, tedious, and requires frequent repetition because your brain can only hold so much memorized information. I’m not saying other methods of learning are stupid; if something works for you better than the rest you stick with it! In my case, the Thinking method did it. There are a lot other things in life where you have no other option than memorization–I just think a creative process like language learning is better without it.

My take is listen to the first lesson, and don’t tell me if it didn’t work. Cause if this doesn’t work for you, I don’t know anything else that will!

Where to get it?
You can download it from the Language Transfer website, stream on youtube, souncloud, and any other shady website you’re used to.
I still don’t get why this stuff is available for free! As they say, the best stuff in life is.

46 Comments

I’ve been interested in learning a new language for awhile now, and have to say this sounds pretty interesting. My brother is currently trying to learn Spanish so I’ll be letting him know about it as well. Thanks for the great review!

I’m so happy I came across this post! I listened to the first 3 lessons and I’m a fan. Was looking for a spanish course even remotely interesting since months now and all this time it was on youtube lol. Thanks for the recommendation:-)

I think Michel Thomas has a French course too–his method is similar to the one I’ve mentioned here. Also I’ve heard good things about a site called “Zut,” (whatever it means) but no personal experience. Michel thomas courses are cool if you don’t mind his accent 😉
French is a popular language, if will find something perfect for you…

I’m not exactly sure but its very thick, they say it’s Polish… his voice is sort of meditative though, can make you sleepy.Anyways, personally I don’t think Michel Thomas is any good for advance studies–his courses make you overconfident, like you “feel” you’re fluent until you don’t turn it off;)

Thank you for sharing this because I had not heard of the free Language Transfer courses before, though I wish that they had an Esperanto course for English speakers since that is the language that I am currently studying (maybe one day they will make a course for it), but it is good to know that they have Spanish and French et cetera courses in case I ever return to trying to learn one of those languages again.

Yeah, that is one of several things that I liked about Esperanto, you are welcome.

Mais oui, I took a break from studying French on Duolingo again almost a month ago to give Esperanto a try again, and a few years ago I briefly tried Spanish on Duolingo after getting frustrated with French. 😀

I imagine that would help, and I hope that you find someone to learn with / from one day if you decided to give it a try again.

I watch Japanese anime (mostly English dubs though, and even a French dub once which I liked better than the English or Japanese dub; it was the movie Spirited Away), but oddly I have never really been interested in the language. 😀

Especially the French dub in my opinion which made the movie feel more mysterious and scary and just better, I watched the French dub first, the Japanese dub second, and the English dub third (which I did not like even though that is my native language :D).

Cool, I never seen that anime other than a few video clips that one of my brothers showed me which made basketball look more dramatic et cetera in that usual anime-style, but he saw that show.

Thanks for the info. I have been getting back into studying Spanish for a while (I used to study it for four years in high school and stopped) by a language study course that someone gave me last week. But Japanese is always getting in the way since I have an exam next month.

I’ve noticed that non-wordpress users are unable to comment on my posts, inspite of the settings in place. It’s just one of the many WordPress bugs. Sorry for the inconvenience. Let’s hope it fixes itself.